On first glance, Fifer (1866) is simply a painting of an innocent young boy. In reality, however, it is one of Manet’s oddest “portraits” of Victorine Meurent: she was one of several models who sat for the painting. As a result, her eyes seem to peer strangely from another’s face. The fifer’s intense but abstracted gaze and light, half-formed eyebrows seem lifted directly from The Street Singer, and the hand that blocks Victorine’s mouth in that painting is echoed here by the fife before the boy’s lips (Armstrong 161) - a reminder of Manet’s obsession with control. For like The Street Singer, Fifer is an attempt at concealment of Victorine’s body and sexuality - but this time, with flesh instead of cloth. Her sexuality is not merely hidden, but subsumed: by combining her with a prepubescent male, Fifer neutralizes Victorine’s female sexuality. Painted in the period between Olympia and Gare Saint-Lazare, Fifer signals Manet’s intent to drain the sexuality from his images of Victorine.
This time, however, Victorine’s costume has special significance. Intriguingly, another likely model for Fifer was Leon, Suzanne’s son (Brombert 184). By integrating Victorine with a member of his household, Manet symbolically brings her under his rule. She is contained and controlled within the family unit, where female sexuality was reserved for the husband’s bedroom. This interpretation of Fifer sheds new light on Victorine’s role in Gare Saint-Lazare: as a nanny attached to an upper-class household, she is part of a world that Manet can understand and control. Manet achieves his final triumph not just by forcing not just her body, but also the very structure of her life into submission.
Left: Manet, Edouard. The Fifer. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Right: Manet, Edouard. The Street Singer. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (detail)